British Newspaper Discourse The discourse structure of the news story and editorials

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British Newspaper Discourse The discourse
structure of the news story and editorials
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• The discourse structure of news stories
• Types of news articles

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• Journalists do not write articles, they write
  stories with structure, order, viewpoint and
  values
• Bell 1998

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Inverted pyramid
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The structure of the news story

• The lead (US) or intro (UK)
• Who?
• What?
• When?
• Where?
• Why?
• How?

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Found prehistoric rodent that was as big as a
bull By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published 16 January 2008
The fossilised skull of a giant rodent that grew
to the size of a bull has been discovered in
South America, where it lived about four million
years ago alongside sabre-toothed cats, huge
flightless "terror" birds and giant ground
sloths. Scientists have found the almost
complete skull of the extinct rodent, which
weighed about a ton and grew about 5ft tall and
about 9ft long.
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• Tokyo Two sake brewers were seriously ill
  after being overcome by fumes when one fell in a
  half full vat and the other was trapped trying to
  rescue him. Reuter.
• (from Bell 1998)

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Deportation setback

• Storms over Iceland delayed the deportation from
  Norway yesterday of 12 American anti-abortion
  activists who had allegedly planned to stage
  demonstrations during the Winter Olympics and
  were detained by police when they arrived in
  Oslos airport.
• (From Bell 1998)

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News reports - revision

• Structure
• Attribution source (byline/agencies), place,
  time
• Abstract headline, lead(or intro)
• Story episodes (1-n), events (1-n),
  attributions, actors, actions, settings (time,
  place),
• follow-up (consequences, reactions), commentary
  (context, evaluation), background (previous
  episodes, history)

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Headlines are summaries,

• their main functions are to
• Attract the readers attention to the story (or
  paper, if on the front page)
• Tell the reader what the story is about by
• summarising the content of the story
• indicating the evaluation of the story
• indicating the register of the story
• indicating the focus of the story
•  

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News reports the abstract

• Headlines are powerful framing devices and
  prepare the reader by priming their expectations
  as to evaluation
• The lead (US) or intro (UK) tells us
• Who?What?When?Where?Why?How?

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Inverted pyramid structure

• Beginning of text
  Greatest amount of information (Headline and
  lead)
• As text progresses less really new information ,
  more detail, background, commentary

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• Pope cancels trip in Rome over security
• By Malcolm Moore in Rome, Last Updated
  1201am GMT 16/01/2008
• The pope has been forced to cancel a visit to a
  university in Rome because of fears for his
  safety.  
• Benedict was due to address students at La
  Sapienza University, but called off his trip at
  the last minute because of a sit-in protest. The
  last papal trip to be cancelled for security
  reasons was in 1994, when John Paul II was due to
  visit Sarajevo. However, the pope has never been
  unable to tour Italy in modern times. Angry
  students had threatened to blast dance music at
  the pontiff, and also to dress up as nuns.
  According to sources close to the Vatican, there
  had also been "more serious threats". The
  official newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore
  Romano, said that "this is a dramatic threat
  against the papacy, culturally and civilly".
• The controversy began after 67 professors at the
  university signed a letter saying the pope should
  not be allowed to give the inauguration speech
  for the academic year.
• The professors accused Benedict of being opposed
  to science, and cited a speech he gave two
  decades ago. They argued that the pope would have
  supported the Church's 17th century trial against
  Galileo for claiming the earth revolved around
  the sun.
• Although there is little evidence in the speech
  to support their claim, the students lent their
  support to the cause, and occupied the dean's
  office, waving banners which said "The Pope has
  occupied La Sapienza. Free the Intellectuals!"
• The Italian Bishops' Conference said they were
  "worried" about the state of the university,
  which was founded by the Vatican seven centuries
  ago. "There seems to be part of the secular world
  which does not argue, but demonises and which
  does not discuss, but creates monsters," said a
  spokesman for the bishops.
• Students rejoiced when the Vatican finally
  conceded and cancelled the trip, shouting "Get
  the Pope out !"
• However, Renato Guarini, the dean of the
  university, said he was "bitterly upset" at the
  tension on campus.
• Romano Prodi, the Italian prime minister, also
  condemned the students' actions, saying that it
  had been "unacceptable".

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Exploring stance

• How speakers and writers pass judgements on
  people generally, on other writers and speakers
  and their utterances, on material objects, on
  happenings and states of affairs and thereby form
  alliances with those who share these views and
  distance themselves from those who dont

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reporting v commenting

• News reports will usually contain some aspect of
  subjective evaluation revealing stance
• The selection of the story to be told
• The way the story is framed
• The selection of details included
• The choice of attributions
• Transitivity choices
• commentary

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stance is a refracting and structuring medium

• Different newspapers and news broadcasts report
  differently, both in content and presentation
• They express affiliations and disaffections in
  the way they represent or mediate by means of
  transformation or differential treatment in
  presentation

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The editorial is the voice of the papers opinions

• We will be exploring how attitudes, judgements
  and emotive responses are explicitly presented in
  texts but also how they can be more indirectly
  implied, presupposed or assumed.
• How the expression of such attitudes and
  judgements is, in many instances, carefully
  managed so as to take into account the ever
  present possibility of challenge or contradiction
  from those who hold differing views.

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commenting

• Editorial
• Voice of the newspaper
• Unsigned
• Op-ed (opposite the editorial)
• A signed comment article
• Giving one persons opinion
• Readers comments letters page or comment
  threads under an article

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Guardian editorial page

• Editorials reply p32
• Leveson a public inquiry demands a public debate
• Editorial The derailing of bills through Leveson
  amendments is clumsy and blunt but it is forcing
  the issue into the open where it belongs
• In praise of mind the gap
• Editorial In a world forever catastrophising the
  future, mini-institutions embedded into our daily
  lives anchor us to our past
• Papal conclave I elect as supreme pontiff
• Editorial With no clear favourite, it could take
  a long time for the white smoke to emerge when
  the cardinals go into lockdown
• The SWP and rape why I care about this
  Marxist-Leninist implosion
• Laurie Penny The SWP has been a significant
  organising force on the British left for decades.
  But socialism without feminism isn't worth it

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Functions of the editorial

• To comment on items in the news, give opinions,
  guide others in forming an opinion, sometimes
  humourous.
• To persuade
• To create a consensus of opinion with the readers

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Editorial language

• Evaluative lexis affect, judgements
• Modality authority
• Generic statements (show authority, the editorial
  claims total knowledge)
• Argumentative e.g. rhetorical questions,
  exclamatory clauses, other rhetorical devices
  such as metaphor, hyperbole
• Exophoric reference- first person plural
  pronouns we, us, our

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Editorials examples

• Matter of Consent
• The Times January 17, 2008
• Convincing many more people to register as organ
  donors is the right approach
• Give us justice
• The Sun January 17, 2008
• POLICE catch criminals. Courts punish them.
• Thats the bargain between citizen and state. We
  call it justice.
• But justice means nothing when decent parents
  are murdered on their doorstep by drunken thugs.

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Op eds

• Short for opposite the editorial but of course
  this is valid only for the paper version.
• They are signed
• They have all the linguistic features which
  differentiate editorials from news reports
• They appear in sections which label them (blog,
  comment, opinion ecc)

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Op-eds

• Blogs Home News US politics Tim Stanley
• Tim Stanley
• Dr Tim Stanley is a historian of the United
  States. His biography of Pat Buchanan is out now.
  His personal website is www.timothystanley.co.uk
  and you can follow him on Twitter
  _at_timothy_stanley.
• Texas secession petition reaches 25,000
  signatures. Even Obama doesn't warrant this
  conservative pessimism

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Op-ed example

• Robert Fisk article
• Sunday 18 November 2012
• As Israel and Hamas open the 'gates of hell' in
  Gaza, all the journalistic cliches of war are
  here again
• 'Surgical air strikes', 'rooting out terror', and
  'cyber-terrorism' cannot conceal reality
• ( on Prof Blog)

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Modality

• A term used in syntactic and semantic analysis to
  refer to meanings connected with degrees of
  certainty, necessity, obligation or desirability
• It is expressed mainly by verbs but also by
  associated forms

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A PERSONAL VIEW

• Modality is the speakers assessment of the
  probabilities inherent in the situation
  (epistemic modality)or of the rights and duties
  (deontic modality)
• It allows the speaker to introduce a personal,
  subjective view of the non-factual and
  non-temporal event

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Type of modality Deontic or intrinsic modality

• The system of duty, desirability and necessity
  attitude to the degree of obligation which the
  speaker does not expect to be disputed on.
  Associated with power and formality

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Type of modality Epistemic

• Epistemic or extrinsic modality commitment to
  the truth of the proposition i.e. the speakers
  confidence in the truth of the proposition
  expressed and reflect the certainty and the
  authority of these propositions.
• It refers to the logical status of events or
  states, assessments of likelihood. Associated
  with confidence and lack of confidence but also
  with power and authority

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Simple present for eternal truths

• All messages choose some form of modality even if
  it is only the neutral choice of bold assertion
  absence of explicit modality still expresses a
  high degree of certainty and therefore a
  perception of authority, the right to make
  pronouncements.
• The speakers choice of modal expressions signals
  both the degree and type of involvement a speaker
  has in the content of his/her message

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• the neutral choice of bold assertion absence of
  explicit modality still expresses a high degree
  of certainty
• The simple present is used to express universal
  truths
• The sun rises in the east
• Wood floats on water

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Stance what, how and who

• expression of the writer/speaker's attitude
  towards, viewpoint on or feelings about the
  entities or propositions s/he is talking about
• Assessment of desirability or likelihood
• Affect and evidentiality
• Stance markers

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The interpersonal function of language

• the speakers or writers attitude towards or
  point of view about a state of the world
• Certainty or possibility or probability
• Trying to get things done or trying to control
  the course of events degrees of obligation and
  whether something is necessary, desirable
  permitted or forbidden, volition and instructions

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Interpersonal meanings

• Modality is concerned with assertion and
  assertiveness, tentativeness, commitment,
  detachment and other crucial aspects of
  interpersonal meaning (as opposed to ideational
  or content meanings)
• They form a part of the tenor of discourse
• They are part of how a person presents his/her
  self through language

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Useful things to distinguish

• Attitudinal targets
• Explicit vs implicit attitude
• Asserted vs presupposed attitude
• Evaluative responsibility

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The right to assess or appraise

• Stance, appraisal and assessment are all about
  relative positions
• Who is in a position to appraise
• Positions of authority

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Graduation

• Force gradable scaling raising or lowering the
  intensity of the utterance
• Focus non-gradable scaling raising or lowering
  of intensity achieved through narrowing or
  broadening, and or sharpening or softening
• Both are factors in the expression of strong
  opinions

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Voice of the Mirror

• Respect is due for our soldiers
• The disgraceful protests against soldiers in the
  Royal Anglian Regiment returning home have no
  place in Britain.
• Those men who were waving placards that attack
  our brave soldiers as "butchers" only shamed
  themselves.
• Our soldiers have a right to respect and pride
  when they return from a tour of duty.
• They have given their all for their country.

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The Sun says

• Mob rule
• OUR brave troops have enough to put up with as
  they risk life and limb in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• To top it all, now they fly home to vicious abuse
  from Islamic fanatics.
• The Royal Anglians had to face a chanting mob
  waving grotesque placards accusing THEM of
  terrorism and child murder.
• Astonishingly, this despicable demo went ahead
  with police approval.
• When it turned predictably ugly, who did our
  brave bobbies arrest?
• Not the extremists who started the trouble, but a
  couple of locals who rallied to Our Boys
  defence.

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Voice of the Mirror

• Blacklists ruin lives
• Blacklisting workers is wrong and must be stamped
  out completely.
• The disclosure that some of Britain's biggest
  companies secretly banned individuals from jobs
  demands a strong Government response.
• Men and women deprived of their livelihoods were
  unable to challenge allegations that were often
  inaccurate.
• And a person's political views should never be a
  bar to employment in a democracy.

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International paedophile register is needed

• The worrying case of the convicted paedophile
  found working as a children's nurse in an NHS
  hospital raises serious issues.
• The need for a comprehensive, international
  register is clear so paedophiles aren't able to
  sneak undetected from country to country.
• The safety of our kids must never be compromised

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Sources / Useful Reading

• See lesson 3
• Also
• Fowler, R. 1991. Language in the News Discourse
  and Ideology in the Press. Routledge. Pp 208-221
• Morley, J. The sting in the tail Persuasion in
  English editorial discourse. In Partington et al.
  Corpora and Discourse. Peter Lang pp 238-255